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I make sure to get my trial dog home from my Pro as soon as the trial season is done so that I can get her out for some hunts before it's time to go south. She has blast, let's loose and has fun. As Angie said, they know the difference.

Well thanks everyone for your thoughts, while I dont feel any of my dogs are ready to run trials or did I have the intention of running trials or hunt tests when I got my first dog, I just wanted a hunting dog. I did get caught up in the hunt tests and find myself considering trials though by no means running the circuit as my geographical location makes that a bit hard on the wallet. And with the encouragment of everyones comments coupled with the fact like many of you I also see retrievers a versatile breed who can both be a good hunting dog and with some polish run in field trials. LMAO guess I better get to polishing!

The everyday waterfowl hunter doesn't often get to see what a MH or FT dog can do. I get real enjoyment out of going out with buddies to a blind and working my dog for them as much as I enjoy the shooting itself. And why would I deprive her of the attention and ham biscuits she gets in the blind because she is a FT'er

"The average dog is a nicer person than the average person" Andy Rooney
"Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove something is even remotely true." Homer Simpson

I have hunted and not hunted dogs I have competed with. The best dogs I competed with hunted quite often and at an early age. They were also great competitive dogs because of the foundation they received as young dogs. The relationships we built during the hunts, truck rides, nights in motels, and lots of birds in the field pay off when I need to lean on them in the final series. I believe my best dogs will always hunt and have a solid training foundation.

I run filed trials with my hunting dog. The only problem I have ran into after hunting season is it took her awhile to "look long " after seeing 3 months of 25 yds birds compared to 250 yd birds. She is not going south this year and I am a curious as to how this will effect her in the water setups. We will see how it goes as we are moving into AM stakes.

At only 30 months old now I hope this years transition back to FT might be a little easier than last season.

This is the first dog that I have attempted to take threw a training program as I wanted a dog to take hand signals so I decided to try to put a JH title on her and was hooked so now she has a couple derby and Qual placements She doesnt like to wear her ribbons in the hunting blind ,she thinks they flare birds.

Thanks, Dave
Looks like pheasant hunt was good! Not over limit, were you? Look out for those S. Dakota game wardens. Philip

Not over limit. There were ten of us and we had our limit of 30 in about 2 1/2 hours of hunting. I'm pictured with my Dad, he was out visiting from Michigan. It was great to show him such a good time. Mick did get more of his limit, even got to show off that fancy handling on a bird that fell way out in a slough that none of the dogs saw fall. No one else in the group had ever seen that, they were very impressed. I messed up the blind, stopped him short of the bird & tweet tweeted. A hunting partner had to help me figure out where the bird was. I'd have been dropped in a trial but my hunting partners would have given me blue!

"For everyone to whom much is given, of him shall much be required." -- Luke 12:48